We think it may be time. For example, the act in practice gives the President powers Congress believed were necessary to resolve present conflicts. That feature gained support from the 9/11 attacks that left 2977 dead (including 372 foreign nationals) plus 19 high-jackers who hijacked four commercial airliners and crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and crashed a third one into the Pentagon. A fourth airliner crashed into a Pennsylvania cornfield thanks to courageous passengers who stormed the cockpit. Several warning signs and memos were not put together and interpreted in real time for action. Existing stove-pipe agencies in US government together with an authoritarian Commander in Chief, whose team ignored warnings from the previous administration, prevented information known in some governmental quarters from being recognized as a pattern and being acted upon. After 9/11, the fear generated was so great that the Patriot Act did not include much in the way of limits on guarding individual freedoms.

Stay hidden, hit them when they aren't looking. It worked wonders during the Revolutionary War. But now the shoe seems to be on the other foot. Only the geography and bad guys have changed.

Bruce Hoffman, professor of security studies at Georgetown University, in the Washington Post (2010) makes some key points. Al Qa'ida morphs as needed to stay ahead of barriers we erect. They are adept at training an endless supply of radicalized converts from many different cultures. They are equally adept at devising new twists in the lead-in line.

History is difficult to predict, but our view of this volume is that it will become a defining reference on the Bush administration. Goldsmith accurately reports the history, as he experienced it, in the Office of Legal Counsel. While he is critical of certain aspects of how the Bush Administration conducted the war on terror, he nonetheless sided with Bush on most issues.

Two dozen contributors to this book add more than perspective; it adds new dimensions as well. Now, more than two years after publication, this book is still current. It reinforces our conclusions elsewhere that we must listen to bin Laden, and listen closely if we care what this man thinks. We should, for he does not think
like we do. Until we know his thought processes, we cannot understand his tactical use and motivation of suicide bombers much less understand his ultimate strategy.

9/11, bin Laden's gloating, and Mr. Bush declaring war on terror gave us all the impression that what terrorism is all about is our presence in the Middle East. If we had not been in the Middle East, we would not have been hit.

We know not what we do. Or so it seems. But what is certain now is that we are fighting the wrong war. And we are losing the real one; the one for the hearts and minds of those who would welcome and embrace freedom and self-determination under any flag, economic system, religion or government--democracy in other words.

More than five years after 9/11 there is little room for optimism amid the ruins of economic imperialism and "democratic" nation building. If al Qa'ida has lost so many people, had to move its central base, and lost much of the freedom it once had to communicate and move money and people freely, why is it still so effetive?

This page profiles how terror of one kind begets terror of another kind in never ending cycles. Our aggressive self-centered behaviors expressed by our
Authoritarian Personalities feed on themselves. This is a natural consequence of our nature (genetic) / nurture (rearing) background. When we can, we lord it over others in imperialistic fashion. When we are humiliated by taxation without representation or by having our resources co-opted by others, we fight back militarily or with terror a last resort. America seems to have forgotten its own response to humiliation. There are better ways to fight terror.

This ultimate terror has already visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Harry Truman made that decision based on the loss of life on both sides that military alternatives would incur. He operated in the political darkness of what was to come.

Terror has always embraced multiple spheres, religious, secular, economic and special interests. Jihad movements of recent history have sent religious terrorism to historic highs. Al Qa'ida and especially 9/11, have provided a blueprint that bodes ill for humanity. That blueprint was responsible for the Casablanca, Madrid, and London attacks among others. These were the works of locally inspired and organized cells. There was no wide-area network, only private communications.

Whose god is God is a primary driver of the conflict between Islam and the West. Sociopaths and their authoritarian pals fan the flames of conflict and violence. Neocon over-reaching has the same result, and so, also, for Zionism in Palestine.

A century of social and academic research have not come close to revealing a general theory of terrorism. What seems to fit one group, fails for another. Terror modes change over time as do their nominal motives and adversaries.